Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to the Metrograph’s Three Wiseman series for a one-week run beginning today, Friday, March 25: HIGH SCHOOL

Frederick Wiseman’s examination of a Philadelphia high school debuted in 1968. His second feature, the film has screened in several retrospectives over the years, and was preserved by the National Film Registry in 1991.

One of the auteur’s masterful institutional studies, Wiseman’s observational film offers audiences an inside look at the goings on at Northeast High School, from language and literature classes to disciplinary meetings between teachers, students, and parents, hall pass inspections to sex-ed lectures. What soon emerges is an often wryly funny portrait of a system that stresses conformity and subservience to authority more than independent thinking or intellectual engagement. A boy who denies his involvement in bad behavior is forced to take detention anyway, though he notes he only agrees “under protest.” A girl prepping for a fashion show is criticized for her weight problem, while another is taken to task for an inappropriate dress worn to a formal. Wiseman holds up the mirror to the American educational system to capture the reflection of a factory which aims to produce obedient citizens.

Newly re-released to DVD: THE UNIVERSE OF KEITH HARING

Christina Clausen’s tribute to the pop art phenomenon debuted at Rome in 2007. The film also screened at NewFest, Tribeca, Tallinn Black Nights, New Zealand, Oslo, Newport Beach, Tallgrass, and Outfest, among others. Previously released on DVD in 2009, the title became available once again earlier this week.

I previously wrote about the doc for NewFest’s program, saying:
Keith Haring was one of the most popular artists of the late 20th century, and his images remain some of the most recognizable today, years after his death from AIDS. Christina Clausen’s film explores the scope of Haring’s universe, from his personal history to interviews and archival footage of the many friends, associates, and admirers who traveled in his orbit – including Yoko Ono, David LaChapelle, Madonna, Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Junior Vasquez, and others. Her film serves as a wonderful celebration of his life and of the enduring legacy of his art.

New to DVD this week: THE PERFECT CRIME

Cathleen O’Connell’s look back at the infamous case of Leopold and Loeb premiered on PBS’s American Experience last month.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD this week: DREAMS REWIRED

Manu Luksch, Martin Reinhart, and Thomas Tode’s essay on technology and human connection debuted at Rotterdam last year. Screenings followed at Seattle, Jerusalem, Milan, Message to Man, Hamburg, Jihlava, CPH:DOX, Kansas, and Tehran’s Cinema Verite, among other events.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 22: THE PEARL BUTTON

Patricio Guzmán’s excavation of Chile’s dark legacy debuted at Berlin last year. Other fest screenings included Toronto, BAFICI, Biografilm, Sydney, Jerusalem, Melbourne, San Sebastian, Bergen, Vancouver, London, and Yamagata.

I previously wrote about the film here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 22: NOMA: MY PERFECT STORM

Pierre Deschamps’ inside look at one of the best restaurants in the world made its bow at San Sebastian last year. Screenings followed at DOC NYC, CPH:DOX, Berlin, and the food-focused Tokyo Gohan fest, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’ America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, March 22: ROMEO ROMEO

Lizzie Gottlieb’s chronicle of a lesbian couple’s attempts to conceive a child had its world premiere at the Hamptons in 2012. Its fest circuit also included Frameline, Philadelphia QFest, Ft Lauderdale LGBT, Tampa LGBT, and Mix Copenhagen, among others.

After Lexy and Jessica got married, the couple began to plan their family. While they initially consider using a known sperm donor, they instead opt for an anonymous one, thinking it will make things easier, and deplete their savings to buy sperm online. As has become an increasingly worrying issue for countless would-be parents, the path to pregnancy didn’t end there. Gottlieb films the couple through frustrating attempts and heartbreaking false starts, pharmaceutical therapies, and concerns that maybe they just won’t be able to have their son, who they want to name Romeo, after all. While the film breaks no new ground – the topic of same-sex parents trying to have kids has been amply covered in several other documentaries – Gottlieb’s subjects are warm, appealing, and vulnerable, quickly garnering the viewer’s empathy and support.

Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tomorrow, Tuesday, March 22: AMONG THE BELIEVERS

Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s inside look at jihadist indoctrination premiered at Tribeca last year. It has also screened at IDFA, CPH:DOX, Sydney, AFI Docs, DMZ Docs, Vancouver, Tallgrass, Stockholm, Rio, Heartland, Human Rights Watch London, and St Louis, among other festivals.

Set within Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, Trivedi and Naqvi’s provocative film offers impressive access to a deeply polarizing figure, Abdul Aziz Ghazi, a darkly charismatic radical Muslim cleric who is in charge of the Red Mosque, a growing network of madrassas that take in orphaned and poor children to transform them into soldiers for Islam and against a secular Pakistan. Devoted to bringing sharia law to his nation, Ghazi is unapologetic about his militancy and his stance against the government – as the film recounts, in 2007, federal policies against the Red Mosque led to a standoff which claimed the lives of his immediate family and more than a hundred students. His extremism is fed to his charges, shown chillingly in the opening scene in which a young boy rehearses his lesson, a rote condemnation of infidels complete with exaggerated gestures. As interviews with other, older students later reveal, while the madrassa insists on the memorization of the Koran, the younger kids aren’t told what the verses even mean. As Ghazi’s opponents note, the students and their parents typically are not particularly religious – they’re just desperately poor, and the madrassas’ free education, lodging, and food are more than the government is able to provide, making them easy marks for recruitment. Still, despite his influence, Ghazi’s public defense of the Taliban’s massacre of Peshawar school children in 2014 led to a nationwide protests against religious extremism targeting the Red Mosque, providing tentative hope for a corrective to his corrosive views.

Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, March 21: EVERYTHING IS COPY

Jacob Bernstein and co-director Nick Hooker’s tribute to Bernstein’s acclaimed writer mother Nora Ephron premiered at the New York Film Festival last year. It went on to screen at Palm Springs and the Westchester Jewish film fests, and to a limited theatrical release beginning last weekend.

I previously wrote about the doc here.